de the spirit prisoner of the body; while He made the ambitious king,
struggling for the infinite, a slave to his own flesh. How high soever
his thoughts soar, still the king remains a clumsy, confined, powerless
child of humanity; how much soever his conscience harasses him with
disquiet and dread, yet he must be calm and endure it. He cannot run
away from his conscience; God has fettered him by the flesh. The king is
sleeping! But the queen is not; and Jane Douglas is not; neither is
the Princess Elizabeth. She has watched with heart beating high. She is
restless, and, pacing her room up and down in strange confusion, waited
for the hour that she had appointed for the meeting. Now the hour had
arrived. A glowing crimson overspread the face of the young princess;
and her hand trembled as she took the light and opened the secret door
to the corridor. She stood still for a moment, hesitating; then, ashamed
of her irresolution, she crossed the corridor and ascended the small
staircase which led to the tower-chamber. With a hasty movement she
pushed open the door and entered the small slip that was at the end of
her journey, and Thomas Seymour was already there.

As she saw him, an involuntary trepidation came over her, and for the
first time she now became conscious of her hazardous step.

As Seymour, the ardent young man, approached her with a passionate
salutation, she stepped shyly back and pushed away his hand.

"How! you will not allow me to kiss your hand?" asked he, and she
thought she observed on his face a slight, scornful smile. "You make me
the happiest of mortals by inviting me to this interview, and now you
stand before me rigid and cold, and I am not once permitted to clasp you
in my arms, Elizabeth!"

Elizabeth! He had called her by her first name without her having
given him permission to do so. That offended her. In the midst of her
confusion, that aroused the pride of the princess, and made her aware
how much she must have forgotten her own dignity, when another could be
so forgetful of it.

She wished to regain it. At this moment she would have given a year of
her life if she had not taken this step--if she had not invited the earl
to this meeting.

She wanted to try and regain in his eyes her lost position, and again to
become to him the princess.

Pride in her was still mightier than love. She meant her lover should at
the same time bow before her as her favored servant.

Therefore she gravel